Subject to Change (16 page)

“Listen, Joey. I told you I have baggage. You barely know me, and now is not the best time to explain it to you. Okay?”

I thought we were way past explanations. I suddenly had trouble getting air into my lungs. “No, Hawk. It’s fucking not okay. We have been together for almost two months, and I thought we’d told each other the important things. And we’ve done…what we’ve done…and I’m really tired of ignoring shit that I don’t want to ignore anymore.”

His voice went cold. “Exactly what shit are you talking about?”

“Well, let’s start with how you can turn this relationship on and off without blinking. Like how you were perfectly happy to ditch me at date party last night.”

“You knew there was no way you were riding home with me on the motorbike with as much as you were drinking, didn’t you?” There was a vicious bite to his voice that, honestly, scared me a little.

Oh, shit. I had gone on sorority-Joey, date-planning autopilot and not even given a thought about having to get on his bike. Hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Obviously.

“You forgot I drive a bike, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think… We could have taken a cab,” I said in a low, choked voice.

“I bought a tie, so I came on the bike. I’m broke, remember?”

Anger surged through me. I shouldn’t have felt bad about drinking. I’d just wanted to have one fun night out, like normal college students. Couldn’t he take one night off from his stupid bike?

“God, why do you insist on driving a frickin’ motorbike, Hawk? It’s Philly. It’s freezing half the year and raining the rest. Your bike is totally impractical.”

He clenched his fists at his side, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I drive the goddamn bike because my dad died in a car crash. And I don’t feel safe in a car. When I’m on the bike, it’s just me and the road. I can make split-second decisions. The bike doesn’t control me — I control the bike. I like it that way.”

“Yeah, you like to control everything, don’t you? In fact, you’ve been controlling me since that day in class when you took over the project. And ever since then, deciding what to tell me and when to tell it. Dammit, Hawk. You’re not in charge of everything.”

Hawk scoffed. “And you’re not controlling, Miss I-Have-to-Go-to-Med-School-or-the-World-Will-Explode-and-My-Whole-Life-Revolves-Around-Fucking-Orgo’?’ You’re just as fucking messed up as I am, but at least I admit it. You can’t even tell yourself the truth. That fucking major is killing you, and you don’t even see it. How am I supposed to trust you to help me with my own shit when you can’t deal with yours?”

His words were like a punch in the gut. I thought I was the only one who knew how much my coursework was killing me, how out of control I felt. But I wasn’t about to lose the argument now.

“Look at that — you’re trying to control me again. Shocker. Tell me this, Hawk. What would you know about being stressed out at school? You can’t bother to show up half the time, and you certainly haven’t even thought about picking a major yet.”

His eyes flashed dangerously. “My school record has nothing to do with this. Or maybe it does. Maybe you’re pissed off because school isn’t killing me like it is you. You have some stupid idea that says you can only be happy if you’re studying till you die and never have a life. Have you ever even taken a second to ask yourself what you really want? It’s all about what your mom wants or what all your friends are doing.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I could barely get the words out. “What my
dad
wants. This is what my dad wanted.”

My whisper made Hawk pause and stare at me, confusion written across his face.

I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t do anything but force the words out, each one getting louder and louder. “When Dad died, I promised him I’d be a doctor. So the fact that I can’t fucking pass Orgo II means that I’m not just failing myself and my own stupid idea of what success means. I’m failing him. And he’s dead, and there’s no other way I can make him proud.” I was shouting now, but I really couldn’t stop. “So don’t you fucking say I’m being selfish, Hawk. Because that’s what I promised I would do. It is the fucking opposite of selfish.”

I burst into tears, burying my face in my hands and full-on weeping right there on his couch.

I felt the cushion next to me indent as he sat down next to me. There was a pause before he lightly touched my back, then let his hand drop. “I’m sorry, Joey. But I know your dad must have been a good guy, and I don’t think he would have wanted to see you miserable. That’s all I was saying.”

Slowly, I took my head out of my hands, sat up straight. The rage was building in my center, waiting to burst out like a volcano. I’d kept all this shit about dad inside. The need to make him happy and proud. To be a daughter who would fight the monster that took his life.

And all I could hear was Hawk dismissing that out of hand.

I smacked him across the face so hard he put his palm to his cheek and grunted. Then I growled, “Don’t you ever speak about what my father wanted again. You didn’t know him, and you barely know me. And just because you had a fucked-up relationship with your father doesn’t mean you can run around fucking up everyone else’s.”

Hawk’s eyes flared wide, and then he blinked hard. “Yeah, that’s all I’ve been doing, isn’t it? Fucking up your life. Just like you said in that note.”

My entire body froze while Hawk leaned forward, the tattoos on his shoulder stretching, and rolled open the drawer on the coffee table. He fished out that same piece of mangled notebook paper I’d shoved in his mailbox all those weeks ago. Even though it was a mess when I’d written it, the paper looked much more worn now, like it had been carried around, read over and over again.

My mind raced, wondering how he’d gotten it, until I remembered — I’d shoved it in my pocket, then dropped those pants on the floor of Hawk’s room and never seen the note again. Dammit.

“Do I need to read it to you?”

“No,” I said quietly. “Hawk, you have to understand. That day, I thought — ”

“No, you assumed. From day one, you assumed that since I ride a motorbike and have a fucking tattoo and was late to class that I was a loser who didn’t care about school. Didn’t you?”

“I — ”

“Didn’t you?” he roared, and if he hadn’t been screaming in my face, I would swear I heard a twist of anguish to his voice that told me he was about to break down, too.

“I stole your keys. I shoved it in your mailbox, and then I stole your keys to get it back out. I realized I didn’t mean it as soon as I put it in your mailbox, I swear.”

Hawk stood up and walked three paces toward the door, facing away from me. “As soon as I rolled up and explained, you mean. How long am I going to have to keep justifying my choices to you, Joey? Especially when I’ve never made you justify yours?”

I stood up and stalked over to him, but he still refused to turn and face me. I didn’t care. I screamed anyway. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Name one questionable choice of mine that you have a problem with.”

He finally whirled around to stare me down. “I have a problem with you being so goddamn stubborn about pre-med when it’s clearly killing you. I don’t want you to be a victim of your dad’s decisions ten years ago any more than I want the same for myself.”

“I don’t think you can call my dad wanting me to save people victimizing.”

“Only if it forces you to go through med school when you obviously hate it. You know it and I know it, Joey.”

“Yeah, well, that frickin’ bar is forcing you out of any hope for a real future, isn’t it? You can’t see past getting the dishes done and maybe a new stage in the corner. Yeah. That’s gonna be huge.”

“At least I know I can get the job done. You may not respect it, but I’m doing the job well every day, Joey. Can you say the same about being a doctor?” He practically spat the words at my feet, ripping my soul out in the process.

We locked eyes, our storms of rage growing stronger and stronger. I’d argued with Hawk before, of course, but this felt like the end. Like we’d broken something beyond fixing.

He must have felt the same thing because he walked the two remaining steps to the door and just stood there with it open, his hand on the knob. Waiting for me to leave. Controlling me again.

I’d lost the upper hand. I’d lost any hand and was just grappling at the slippery walls of this relationship, trying to regain any footing I’d once felt I had. So I whispered, “I will see you next Thursday for our presentation. And after that, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

And in that moment, with the heat and the betrayal of Hawk’s words burning through me like a raging, destroying fire, I meant every single word. I didn’t even care enough about our Business project to spend one more second with him.

Goddammit. There went my fucking grade.

As I half-ran, half-tripped down the rickety stairs leading out of the building, I shook my head. I could never, ever think about Hawk and I being together again. Especially when, in the back of my mind, I knew that I’d had fleeting thoughts of us being together forever.

The bus wouldn’t come for over forty-five minutes, and I couldn’t just stand outside Hawk’s building like an idiot. I knew it was eleven blocks back to the Kappa Delta house, and the air had a disgusting wet chill to it. But I still carried that fire of anger inside me, and maybe a walk was exactly what I needed.

I kept my head down and stalked through the Philadelphia streets, feeling broken and driven all at the same time. But a weird thing happened as I passed block after block. With each step, I became less and less sure of how right I really was. Then I berated myself for folding so soon. Then I knew I was right again. By the time I was two blocks from the house, I really couldn’t have replayed the whole argument again if I’d tried. And by the time I walked up the front steps, I just felt drained and sad. Miserable, actually.

Cat was still there, fussing around my room. When I walked in, her back was turned to me, and she was bent over my bed, yanking off the sheets.

“You didn’t puke on them or anything, but they smell like Jack Daniels. She grunted as she freed the far corner of the sheet from the mattress. “So you guys kiss and make up?”

“No,” I sniffed. “We fought even more.”

Cat spun around to look at me. “Holy shit. You look like hell.”

“No kidding. And the damn headache is back.”

“Oh, babe. What did he say?”

“He said I shouldn’t be pre-med. That I couldn’t hack it. And then he said I never really respected what he was doing.” The hurt of those words mixed with the anger on Hawk’s face would give me nightmares for a long time.

She plopped down on the clean sheets with a sigh. “Okay, but he’s right about that second thing. Isn’t he?”

I stared at Cat, confused. “Of course he’s not right. What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t have dated him — wouldn’t have even kissed him — if he hadn’t been in college.”

I couldn’t imagine seeing Hawk and not wanting to kiss him. “Yes, I would’ve.”

Cat laughed. “No. No way. You told me once you would never date a guy who hadn’t gone to college or grad school because that would mean he didn’t care about his future.”

A sense of dread settled over the conversation, and a pit formed in my stomach. She was right about that. I definitely had said those things. “Okay, but Hawk does care about his future.”

Cat wagged her finger. “That’s the new Joey talking. The one who loves Hawk. But old Joey wouldn’t have felt that way. Old Joey wouldn’t have given our boy Hawk a second look.
Didn’t
give him a second look, actually. I remember what you said about him when you first met, and you thought he was a total loser. I’m kind of shocked you let yourself get close to the guy. I’m even more shocked you eased up on the studying enough to date him.”

I sputtered, but Cat spoke over me. “Speaking of which… I’m asking you this as a friend only, okay? How’s the major coming?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. A sob choked my words. “I’m barely making it.”

It was like those words let the rest of the flood out. I’d been trying to keep it bottled up for so long, even though I’d known it for weeks. I wasn’t going to make it in pre-med. Tears poured down my face and dropped onto my sweats, and I could barely get a breath.

Cat rubbed circles on my back. “Oh, sweetie.”

“I just don’t know what else to do.”

“I mean… Is there anything else you could see yourself doing?”

I wiped the snot from my nose and let myself think. It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. “I met this girl when I missed rounds that one day. She does Child Life Therapy. Helping kids get through hospitalization for chronic and terminal illness. It’s family-centered therapy.”

“It sounds like what you guys needed when your dad died.”

I’d never thought about it that way, and when I did, a fresh wave of sorrow washed over me. Through my tears, I mumbled, “Yeah. That was exactly what we needed.”

“What are the terms of the fund that’s putting you through school? Do you have to go to med school, or can it be just, like, medical-related?”

“Oh, I definitely have to do a pre-med major, at least, if I’m going to have the money to go to school at all. I don’t have a copy of the document or anything, but that’s what Dad and I talked about right before he…” I choked up and forced myself to finish the thought. “Right before he died. Mom’s always said it was for med school.”

“But she’s the one who really wants you to go to med school, right?”

I shrugged. “I was the only one in the family who ever showed any interest. And I promised him. I did. I promised him.” I started sobbing again.

Cat held me for a long time, letting me cry and snot onto her shirt and never complaining about it once. After a long while, she spoke again. “Honey, do you know exactly what you did promise your dad?”

“He wrote me a letter,” I said in an exhausted whisper. “He could barely write by then, but we’d just had the conversation. He said, ‘These doctors made it their mission to save my life, just like I saved so many others. I want you to be just like me and them, Joey. I want you to be one of the people who gives them hope when everyone else has given up.’”